[Other] Never listen to artist again

[Sir_hennihau]

There should be an option to never listen to an Artist ever again, in none of your playlists. Be it wether self created ones or automatically generated ones. Not in Mix of the day, not in Discover, not in Radio or anything else. Just never listen to that artist again, anywhere.

[MafeG]

Hi @Sir_hennihau,

Thank you for posting on the Community!

We've moved your post to this help board because this is something you can already do. 

You can mute an artist so it won't be played again. From the mobile app, head to the artist's page, tap on the 3 dot menu and select "Don't play this".

Hope this clears things up. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[Digamma]

The feature is broken, I am still recommended artists in my release radar that I have told the software that I hate. Several times
Fix it

[Alex]

Hey @Digamma,

Thanks for the post.

Can you confirm that you've selected 'Don't Play This' on the Artist profile?

If that's the case and you're still getting recommendations, can you send us the URI/ Link to some of the songs from them which you're seeing in your Release Radar.

Looking forward to your reply.

[Digamma]

What I have done is the following:
Android: [1] Artist page -> Kebab menu -> Don't play this
Android: [2] Release radar/Discover Weekly -> Song banner -> Kebab Menu -> Hide this song
Desktop: [3] Release radar/Discover Weekly -> Song Banner -> ⛔ -> I don't like [artist]
Desktop: [4] Release radar/Discover Weekly-> Song Banner -> ⛔ -> I don't like [song]

Don't play, [1], this will skip the artist in most generated playlists, but has - for me - still played the artist inside of a release radar when it's been erroneously added to it even after steps [1]->[4]

Hide this song, [2], I'm pretty sure keeps songs hidden forever in these playlists - mainly just because I've seen hidden songs be added to my discover weekly (even though, it really should make sure that doesn't happen). It also does sync between desktop and android (which is good)

I don't like [artist], [3], doesn't hide artists from future release radars, even though it says it should in the text blurb that appears. This feature is definitely broken. It doesn't even stop said song from playing on desktop.

I don't like [song], [4], doesn't really do anything on desktop right now. The song isn't greyed out, and can still be played, so it doesn't act like hide this song. And **bleep**, I've even had songs I've actively disliked return to discover weekly too, so it's just not working ok.

[Alex]

Hey @Digamma,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you send us the links to some songs on which you've disliked the Artist (Don't Play This activated).

We'll be on the lookout for your reply.

[Digamma]

Let me pull up my last.fm scrobbles to find out which of the songs by artist known as "the greatest bits" that got replayed why don't I. Even though spotify could, and should, prevent recommendations across the board from artists that you've actively gone out of your way to say "hey, I don't like this".
Here it is: https://open.spotify.com/track/6z9RTZoFV7DELXuMjsCt0N?si=1fefc0d101ab40b9
I have had this artist on "do not play" for almost all of 2021, and guess how many times spotify has forced me to listen to him? 11 times. In November, the artist was shoved into my release radar for all four weeks.
There's also no way for me to get spotify to stop recommending me music from games anymore, because they get put into my discover queues, I listen to them, spotify thinks I like it because it keeps thinking I'm actively choosing to listen to it, and then self perpetuates.
This sucks

[Jeremy]

Hi @Digamma,

Thank you for keeping in touch. 

For technical reasons, the way playlists like the Release Radar are generated, currently cannot take the "do not play" settings into consideration, so they can end up in recommendations. Still, they should indeed not be played.

One way we can imagine this could still happen is that when they are played, there's a mismatch of the track with the associated artist profile, so the app doesn't register it as related to the artist they dislike.

This can happen if the track is submitted with wrong metadata info and is usually remedied visually and added to the correct account pretty quickly by either the distributors or our content team, but can take a while for all databases to update.

We can only be sure if we can look at an example, so if this ever happens again it would be great if you can get back and report it to us including the following info:

• track URI or URL
• Playlist it got played from
• Date and time, including your time zone, that it got played on

We hope that this information was helpful.

Let us know if we can help you with anything else 🙂

Take care!

[Digamma]

I'm sorry, what kind of technical reason prevents spotify from simply doing a list comparison of the generated playlists, and then simply re-filling those spots occupied by songs from other artists that the user hasn't actively disliked?

From what I can tell, a large chunk of the software is literally written in python, why can't there just be an extra bit of code run at playlist generation that checks all songs against the disliked suggestion? **bleep**, I can even write a mock example (inefficient, just proving a point) of what that simple code could look like.

def dupe_dislike_replacer(generated_playlist, disliked_songs, disliked_artists, listening_history): 

    for i,item in enumerate(generated_playlist):

        if item['songname'] in disliked_songs or item['artist'] in disliked_artists or item['songname'] in listening_history:

            generated_playlist[i] =  song_replacer(generated_playlist, disliked_songs, disliked_artists,listening_history)

    return(generated_playlist)

Then that song_replacer() would also check that the new song isn't either in the list of three things you need to check against.

How is that a technical issue? Explain to me why that is hard to implement? Like, if the playlists aren't just a dictionary containing this information, what on earth do you use to store that information? I'm serious, this is not something that should be difficult to implement.

[Yordan]

We cannot divulge the full inner workings of the app, plus, we're not developers ourselves, so going back and forth and speculating on the exact reasons why this might be would not be very productive. The only thing we know based on the information we've received is that multiple, mostly independent systems are involved, which makes matters more complex than they might seem.

This doesn't mean that the interconnection between these systems won't improve in the future. The app and related services are being updated regularly and there are multiple teams working on making Spotify better, however, this takes time and resources. As prioritization in itself is a complex matter, we feel it's best to be transparent and confirm the expected behavior, rather than to promise something that we don't have any concrete update plans for.

We'd still like to investigate the issue of tracks playing even after you've chosen to ignore an artist. As mentioned in the majority of our previous post, if you can provide a concrete example with the data requested, we'll make sure to pass it forward for investigation.

On a side note, we'd kindly like to ask you to refrain from using profanity or any other form of offensive, defamatory or condescending language as per our Community Guidelines. Let's remain respectful towards each other and not let an app functionality make us sway away from our best behavior. We want to help, but violation of the guidelines can result in a ban of your Community account.

Thanks for your understanding. We'll be here to look into any examples you can provide us.

Take care!

[Digamma]

First and foremost, while I understand you cannot divulge into the inner workings of the spotify algorithm and playlist generation. But I did look up the API reference for how song information is stored, and it definitely seems to just be a json file (that can easily be converted to a dictionary or database) where these parameters can be individually dissected and compared against a list, so I stand by what I said about the technicality. I simply do not believe that such a fix would be difficult based on that reference, especially since the playlist itself can be accessed and altered by spotify after generation. It can be a band-aid fix before it is properly implemented.   

Unfortunately, it seems the forum flags "H-E-double-hockey sticks" as profanity, which in the context of "'heck', I could even" isn't a directed slur in any fashion.  Understandably, since it is automatically censored - it might look worse than it actually was, so for that - I apologise. But the meaning itself was not intended to be profane in nature. 

Please understand that I have been trying to reach out to spotify about these issues for over two years, as have many other users, and most of these requests have been ignored, or actively (in spite of 3000+ liked) disregarded (Edit: I'm not blaming the you, the moderators, for this - you said yourself that there's a list of priority for fixes - but this is how it appears to the community). You can see why I am frustrated with how 90% of my discover queues are repeats, artists I hate showing up in my playlists, songs I've disliked occupying space in my generated radars and discover weekly queues, and the inability to alter the algorithm to ignore certain genres for radio playlists and auto-play queues.

I will return whenever next my release radar includes an artist I have actively disliked is played again in a release radar. But I am seriously just more concerned about them eating up the available space in my playlists, especially now that it's been revealed I cannot personally influence which artists are actually placed into my release radar since the buttons supposedly don't do anything.

I am actively spending time on the forum giving these reports because I feel like most users would benefit from having some more control over what is selected for their release radars and discover weekly queues.

But I do apologise for my more insular tone than usual in my most recent responses. It's not fair on you, the moderation team. I understand you have guidelines to uphold, have things you cannot say, and have rules about what steps you can first recommend users, and so on. I want to be able to provide you the data you need to solve the problem, but every time in the past two years I have done so - I'm sure the information has been sent on to the development team, but there's just nothing that has been done about it, even with concrete evidence (like repeats in the discover queue). Please let me know if there's any more detailed data I can provide you in order to strengthen the information the development team needs in order to (maybe, hopefully) solve the issues that I and other users have been having.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my queries.

[Yordan]

No hard feelings @Digamma! We completely understand where you're coming from and how frustrating it must be that, while relying on Spotify for your music experience, the odd issue prevents it from being truly ideal for you.

What we can assure you is that no one on the team wants to disappoint and everyone is doing what they can to keep on improving it. Even within the constraints that our different teams must work within, we try and spend time to investigate reports and act on feedback. In the end, we know we most likely won't be able to make everyone happy, but that's not stopping us from giving our best.

Thank you for showing understanding as well. It's really nice to hear someone speak in a as considerate tone as you do!

We'll be here to check upon any examples that you come across during your music listening.

Cheers!

[endcat]

Jeremy, Alex, Yordan,

Your responses and replies are simply the worst.

Yordan, your comment on the user’s tone was uncalled for and you need to understand that the level of frustration from users is the bigger problem. This has been an issue for some time and your users are telling you over and over TO FIX THE ISSUE. You have chosen to ignore the needs of your users and so we are angry. Don't land on us because we are tired of being ignored and sent to the suggestions page. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM HERE. NOT YOUR USERS. We don't need you. YOU need us. we don't need you at all. There are a lot of other services out there.

here is what YOU ALL did wrong.
- you sent the user to PROVE there was an issue. Bad form Alex.
- you dismissed the user’s technical response by saying We cannot divulge the full inner workings of the app.

   To the user this reads as: We aren’t going to help you and we dont have to tell you why.

- you requested a technical response in one response and then specifically claimed you were not developers in another                 (Yordan). Which is it? Why are we sent here if you are all useless and unable to affect any change?

At a point when Spotify is on the hotseat for several issues, is it wise to dismiss your users’ needs like this?

Let's remain respectful towards each other and not let an app functionality make us sway away from our best behavior. 

    YOU FIRST!! When you start doing so maybe it will allow your users to do the same. 

[Alex]

@endcat,

I understand that you and other users are unhappy with the current way the recommendations algorithm doesn't always take into account the fact, that certain artists have been blocked on your account. We've explained how this functionality currently works and that we've continuously passed on user feedback to the right teams at Spotify, who are working on making the app better. 

The moderators and all members of the Community are here to help each other out, so that we can all enjoy listening to music. We're here doing our best to support each other in this Community and, as such, simply won't have any room for this type of accusatory/derogatory remarks and conversations.

We appreciate the time you've taken to write your replies and the troubleshooting reports submitted by all users in this thread. Rest assured your voices are heard.